


Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves

by gloriousmonsters



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Crossdressing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 02:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriousmonsters/pseuds/gloriousmonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord Finrod could not have very well turned away his two cousins when they had nowhere else to go. But Curufin has a fair few secrets, and their desperation may put Finrod in danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say? I had the urge to write a Victorian AU. Set 1873-1874 and on. I have the vague idea of C+C losing all their stuff in the Long Depression (panic of 1873), and Feanor having a business that was taken over by shady businessmen Melkor and Mairon who then killed him. >>

“I never thought to see you back here,” Finrod said. “Usually you scorn safety.”  


  
Curufin smiled emptily, and the way that he did not stir in the chair he sat back in spoke much more of how tired he was from the journey, from the failures he had suffered.   
  
“I admit that in the past,” he said, “I might have not been cautious enough.” He looked into the fire, and his voice went low. “We couldn’t leave America before this; I had to see what Father had started out… I only regret that I wasn’t able to salvage it.”  
  
He looked back to Finrod, faint smile back in place. “I hope we are not presuming too much on your hospitality, cousin?”  
  
“I did not expect you,” Finrod said slowly, thinking it over, “but you brought Orodreth with you. The least I could do for saving his life, and bringing him back to England, was to let you stay for a while.” His gaze flicked towards the window as the wind howled outside. “Besides, it’s a bitter autumn, and it’s going to be a worse winter. I’m not going to throw you out.”  
  
Curufin tilted his head to the side, his smile wry. “Alas, I hoped that you might actually enjoy our company, and not simply be acting out of pity and a sense of debt.”  
  
Finrod frowned. “It’s not that I dislike your company.” Except that you always looked at me so knowingly, when we were younger, and I fear you - maybe just a little. He shook his head, trying to banish such thoughts, and went on. “I enjoy our conversations. Celegorm might be difficult, but he’ll spend as much time as possible outside or out in the city, especially if he discovers that Kennel Club they’ve opened on Clarges Street. And…” He had to search for a name for a moment. “Celebrimbor is a quiet boy. No trouble at all.”  
  
Funny, how quiet the boy was, actually. Had to be only fifteen or so, and had been raised in a tumultous America, but he was as polite as any well-trained gentleman Finrod had ever met. Mostly, he’d stayed in his room, and even he and his father didn’t seem to speak much.   
  
The rooms his new guests were staying in… He had wondered, briefly, if he ought to conserve space and let them stay in the rooms that had once belonged to Angrod and Aegnor. But that would not be proper, he told himself; not when his brothers had only died a month or so ago, when he and Orodreth were still in deep mourning.   
  
Finrod glanced over at Curufin. He was not smiling any longer, but staring abstractly into the fire again.   
  
“We should not stay any longer than the winter, anyway,” he said. “After that, we should go back. Try again.”  
  
Finrod honestly thought the venture foolish; but he held his tongue. That was not for him to decide.  
  
He told himself it was not because he wanted Curufin gone as soon as possible.   
  
~  
  
Winter passed, and they still did not leave.   
  
Curufin was clearly frustrated, distant and distracted when he was waiting for a letter, almost always furious when he recieved one, going quiet and vanishing into the guest-room that had become his for hours at a time. Celegorm spent almost all his time out and about, as predicted, and Celebrimbor was as quiet as ever, barely coming out of his room except for meal-times. He was drawing things, Finrod noted; designs, but he never seemed to show them to anyone.   
  
His period of deep mourning was drawing to a close, and he knew that sooner or later he’d have to be answering questions, devoid of his excuse for simply putting everyone off. But what could he tell them?  
  
Aegnor and Angrod were dead, and not even Orodreth knew the whole reason for it; only that it had been murder, or a fight of some kind, and the boy obviously blamed himself for not being there when his father and uncle were attacked. Although Finrod felt like telling Orodreth that getting a knife between the ribs outside the Stock Exchange and barely surviving was bad enough, and he was glad he hadn’t lost his nephew as well, he could never find the right words when looking at the boy’s closed, sorrowful face.   
  
At least Orodreth had a month or so more of deep mourning, seeing as one of the men that had died was his father. Finrod didn’t relish the idea of him going out anywhere in the state he was in.   
  
Celegorm and Curufin, for all that they had been in the right place at the right time to save Orodreth’s life, denied any knowledge of what had caused the deaths of Finrod’s brothers. Celegorm had said something about a man called Mairon, a businessman, but no more, and had avoided the topic after that; and Curufin turned each question aside smoothly. Finrod had to wonder whether it had anything to do with the disaster that had robbed them of everything - or was the connection closer even than that?  
  
“Are you afraid,” Curufin asked him calmly, one evening, “that you are harboring murderers?”  
  
Finrod snapped closed the book he was trying to read, not caring for the dangerous creak of the spine. “What do you mean?” he asked, sounding far more calm than he felt. Curufin’s ability to read people seemed to go beyond simple guesswork sometimes and become uncanny.   
  
“We had nothing to do with your brothers’ untimely deaths,” Curufin said in the same level tone, not even looking up from the letter he was writing. “I must say I do not mourn them; there was little friendship between us.” He rose, and went past Finrod, and pausing touched his shoulder lightly. “But we did not kill them. And if my wishes were fulfilled, we would be gone already.”  
  
He left Finrod sitting frozen; but in a few minutes Finrod got to his feet, filled with inexplicable anger, and sought the outside air, no matter how cold it was.   
  
Winter turned the grounds of the walled Nargothrond estate to slush and mud, and Finrod’s boots were soaking through within moments as he struck off the cleared path. He didn’t care; he searched the windows with his eyes, finding Curufin and Celegorm’s rooms on the upper floor. Faint shadows flickered across the window of Celegorm’s room; more than one, so it seemed as if the two of them were in conference, but the curtain was drawn and he couldn’t see anything more.   
  
He stood in the snow, breath leaving white clouds in the air, and considered, taking deep breaths. His father had always said that letting your emotions control you was the first step to ruin.   
  
He could not turn them away. They would not answer many of his questions. And he had… he had feared that they had something to do with the deaths of Aegnor and Angrod.   
  
But truthfully, had they given him trouble so far? It had been wearing, to share his house with them, but mostly they had stayed out of his way, save for Curufin who despite his frustration was nothing but polite. And one could expect a man who’d lost everything and been forced to seek shelter in another country to be a little hard-put to be kind, and answer prying questions. Curufin had noticed Finrod’s tension, and reassured him that they had nothing to do with the deaths.   
  
Perhaps the problem only lay with him, and his unease. He would apologize to Curufin tomorrow, he decided, for being an ungracious host, and then begin preparing for re-entrance into society when his mourning period was up. And tonight…  
  
~  
  
He went inside and upstairs as silently as possible, and checked up and down the hallway before entering the room that had once belonged to Artanis. The official explanation for it now was that some of her old belongings were stored there, and other things that were waiting for their original owners to return for them. It was an excuse, at least, if anyone somehow got hold of the key he held and looked inside.   
  
It had been Artanis who had first found out about his secret, and he didn’t think she’d mind the purpose he put the room to. She had left him a few of the dresses in the closet, actually, and after locking the door behind him and lighting a lamp it was one of them he selected.   
  
He didn’t have any black, to suit the mourning he was in; and besides, he detested crape, the hard scratchy silk that women’s mourning-dresses were almost exclusively made of. The gentle gray he owned would have to do; removing his other clothes and folding them carefully, he pulled the silky material over his head.   
  
Finrod couldn’t explain where his fascination had started, and it had no root in a desire to be a woman. He did not envy them their shape or abilities, and especially not their position; but he felt at peace when loose, light skirts settled over his legs instead of the confinement of trousers, and he could still remember the way his heart had skipped the first moment he’d held up one of his mother’s necklaces to his throat as a child, and looked at himself in the mirror.   
  
He liked silk and jewels and letting his hair grow long and loose, and he quickly discovered that none of those were quite ‘done’. Finrod had no wish to disappoint his family, so he had stayed quiet and been equally quietly miserable until Artanis had moved out and left him the dresses and several of her least favorite necklaces.   
  
‘ _The blue one,_ ’ she wrote in her private letter to him, _‘I never wore because it is entirely the wrong color for me. I bought it for you, and I expect you to wear it. Stop being an idiot and just do it in private.’_  
  
So in the deepening silence of the night, only broken by the occasional muffled voice down the hall as Curufin and Celegorm continued their discussion, Finrod calmed himself with the feel of the dress and the quiet pleasure of clasping a necklace around his neck, holding earrings up to his ears even if he could not wear them.   
  
He wondered: if this was his secret, what might Curufin and Celegorm be hiding?


	2. Chapter 2

Curufin kept his letters in his room, which was always locked, and out of consideration for his guest Finrod had given him the key; besides, going through someone’s mail was a gross violation of their privacy.   
  
Finrod explained all this to Edrahil, but his friend only frowned at him.   
  
“There’s a reason I wanted to speak to you and you alone, and I asked Lady Findis to come as well,” he said, nodding at the woman that sat nearby. Edrahil’s home, though not as grand as the Nargothrond house, had a pleasant scent of books and flowers, and Finrod might have been glad to visit again had it not been for the circumstances. “It is hard to say such a thing of anyone, especially of a dear friend’s cousins, but I think… I think they might mean you harm.”  
  
Findis’ face was lightly drawn with worry as she leant forward, laying a hand on Finrod’s arm.   
  
“You were very kind to take them in,” she said softly, “but you must remember who you are. Finrod Felegund - you have worked so hard to keep your place in society, after your father’s death -” her mouth turned down with sadness, “-and the scandal that your uncle and cousins created before they left. You cannot let them undermine your position, as I worry Celegorm is already doing.”  
  
“Likely Curufin’s the one planning everything, though,” Edrahil muttered.   
  
Finrod drew in a deep breath, shrugging off Findis’ hand, and the two of them looked at him with concern in their eyes. Anger bubbled within them, but he restrained it; his friend and aunt only had his interests at heart.   
  
“I could not have turned them away,” he said quietly, “and I do not wish to treat them discourteously. Nevertheless, I am not a fool, and you need not fear for me.”  
  
Edrahil’s veiled suggestion - those letters that Curufin is always sending and recieving, what are they? - took root in his mind.   
  
Maybe it would be the best course of action.  
  
~  
  
The first step was approaching Celegorm, which Finrod did not a little uncomfortably. His blond cousin was so unrestrained, always running and wrestling with Huan as if he was still a child, and disregarding half the rules of etequitte; Finrod could still remember Artanis saying, a long time ago when Feanor’s family still lived in London, that Celegorm survived on charm alone and would have died in a secretly arranged duel long ago if he didn’t have such a pretty smile. She had looked oddly at Finrod for a moment when he nodded agreement, but then smiled gently at him herself and taken his hand as they continued watching the race Celegorm had been participating in.   
  
Celegorm was clearly enjoying the warming spring weather, sitting leant back against a tree with his eyes half-closed; Huan panted, lying at his feet, and Celegorm stroked him absently while he listened to Finrod’s suggestion.  
  
“Curufin has been rather locking himself up recently,” he acknowledged thoughtfully, dipping his head.   
  
Finrod made sure not to appear too eager; he’d had years of experience of controlling his expressions. “Yes, and he’s in a rather black mood. I think he ought to get out of the house - but I’m worried he’d take it as a veiled order to get out altogether, if I tried to suggest it to him. You’re his brother; it would be far better for you to suggest it.” He shrugged. “If you think it best, that is.”  
  
Celegorm tilted his head to the side, and for a moment Finrod felt his keen eyes piercing him and was worried - could Celegorm see through him, to the reason behind his suggestion? - but then he smiled again, and the danger seemed to have passed.   
  
~  
  
When they were gone the next day, Celegorm convincing his brother to accompany him for once, Finrod prepared to break the rules of hospitality.   
  
He had found the spare key, lightly covered in dust in the back of a drawer; he was relatively sure it hadn’t been disturbed since his father’s time.   
  
Somehow he had expected Curufin’s room to be scrupulously neat, reflecting his cool expression and controlled movements, but there were coats thrown over the backs of a chair, drawers left cracked open or overflowing, and the desk was covered with drawings and writings - most of them having to do with Feanor’s old work, Finrod could tell at a glance.   
  
It was that that nearly stopped him in his tracks; the weariness that he could feel as if Curufin’s spirit lingered in the room, with which things were left untidied, for it seemed that half the time Curufin forgot to put things outside, and he never let the servants into his room. The pain and frustration writ painfully clear in a slash of ink across a few lines of writing. Curufin’s mask was so absolute usually, and all of them lived in a world where many secrets were kept; with a glance at his desk, Finrod felt a surge of shame as if he had walked in upon his cousin weeping.   
  
But the letters were the one well-ordered thing in the room, filed in a box on the desk, and curiosity and determination finally drew Finrod forward; there were some handwritten letters, some transcripts of telegrams, and he hesitated for a moment before seeing a neat label in Curufin’s handwriting, _Brothers_ , and began extracting the missives contained between those dividers one by one.   
  
From the first one he opened, he could tell what the letters Curufin had written must have been, and it made him burn even more with the mixture of shame and curiosity. Maedhros’ letter was first, a rush of concern and relief that Curufin and Celegorm were all right - then, clearly written, but with the ache in Maedhros’ heart showing, through the words, a denial of aid.   
  
_I know how much it hurts you, to lose Father’s work. I know you wish to return to America. But Maglor and I are barely holding on as it is…_  
  
And then, a question about Curufin’s wife. That made Fingon frown - he had half-assumed she was dead, or ill and needed to stay with her parents; that was all he had garnered from Curufin’s vague murmurs on the subject. He told himself that he was only going to look for the answer to that question, and reached for the next letter.   
  
Ambrussa. Nothing but a curt note rejecting Curufin’s request, suggesting that he go to Maedhros - Finrod could imagine Curufin’s frustration at that. Caranthir - and this was strange, for if Caranthir had one talent to make him shine rather than show but dully amongst his brothers, it was his business sense.   
  
But the telegram said that he was in no state to help either; and the letter that had obviously followed, when Curufin had demanded further explanation, rambled and was vague and cagey, but emotion overspilled it - and at the heart of the matter, Caranthir simply said he had met a woman. One Haleth, struggling to hold together her own father’s business after his and her brothers’ death.

And he had helped her - Caranthir, who Finrod recalled vaguely as always speaking of woman with cruel disdain, while his wife was silent and glowered at his back. Not a happy marriage, but one that ought to still be in place, and now Caranthir was writing in such glowing terms of this girl, _she is strong she is unlike anyone I have met before brother you do not understand, I -_ and Finrod closed the paper, pinching the creases tight closed again, as if Caranthir had been speaking to him and by closing the letter he stilled his tongue, kept him from speaking his next words.   
  
But he knew what they had to be, and maybe he should have expected it. Was not the Feanorian family supposed to be filled with scandal? But there was nothing more about Curufin’s mysteriously vanished wife in these letters, and Finrod put them back in the order they’d been - he hoped, mouth dry, that he had not misplaced one - and looked among the other categories.   
  
A label of _Step-grandmother_ gave him a moment’s pause, another queasy shock - if Curufin had turned to even Indis for help, he must be truly desperate beneath his calm, humorless smile - but he continued looking until he found the label _Wife_ , and his eyes widened at the number of papers folded neatly within that divide.   
  
He began to read.   
  
~  
  
That night, the dinner table was uncomfortably silent, and afterwards Finrod took Curufin aside.   
  
“I apologize deeply for reading your letters,” he said first, because he was his father’s son and the lord of Nargothrond estate and nobody could say he was usually an ungracious host. Still, the next words he spat out like venom, finding them distasteful in his mouth. “I do not know if I can offer shelter to one such as you.”  
  
There was a great stillness on Curufin’s face, but his eyes were bright and alive with fear and anger, and it was strangely wonderful to see. He adjusted his cuff, looking away from Finrod, and his voice was soft.   
  
“You read my letters. I see. And what did you find that makes you condemn me so harshly?”  
  
“You know what,” Finrod said coolly. “Your wife begged you to leave Celebrimbor with her - she did not wish you to take him from America with you.”  
  
“He is my son,” Curufin said, in the same soft voice. Finrod felt as if he were cornering a sharp-toothed animal, but pressed on.   
  
“You threatened to have her put in a madhouse.”  
  
Curufin looked up at him with a glint in his eyes.   
  
“But, dear cousin, you’re forgetting what came in between. Or did you miss that part?”  
  
The knowledge that Curufin’s wife had tried to threaten him with. The only slightly veiled allusions to things that had made Finrod drop the letters hastily and put them back. Finrod swallowed on a tightened throat; part of him wanted to deny he’d read about it, but the danger in Curufin’s eyes spurred him on, and he suddenly felt angry. Did Curufin think he would shy from speaking of such a thing?  
  
“I read it,” he said levelly. “It did not make me any more inclined to harbor you here…”  
  
“Brother?”  
  
Both of them turned at the sound of Celegorm’s voice. He was leaning against the wall, the light of a lamp catching in his pale hair and making it glow; his tone was light, but his hand curled into the potential of a fist as Finrod watched, and Finrod realized how much he had backed Curufin against the wall.  
  
“Is something wrong?” Celegorm said, and when Finrod raised his eyes further he saw the start of Celebrimbor’s figure on the stairs, where he sat close against the wall and had not fully gone up, as Finrod had thought.   
  
He turned back to Curufin. _We will talk of this again tomorrow,_ he had meant to say, calm and collected and authoritative, but Curufin smirked, quick and dangerous and sinfully lovely with the sharp-sculpted planes of his face half in shadow, and he reached up and caught at Finrod - his hair, the collar of his shirt, fingers like hooks to fasten into him - and kissed him.   
  
Celebrimbor did not even gasp, nor Celegorm stir from his place, but only raised his eyebrow slightly; and Finrod realized, with odd clarity, of course they had known, and perhaps they had even known or guessed that Curufin would do something like this, perhaps Curufin had wanted to do something like this for a long time. He also noted, distantly, that Curufin’s lips were warm and dry and his tongue gentle and clever, slipping into Finrod’s mouth as deftly as any argument he could make, and he tasted of wine and this, this was utterly unlike kissing Amarie.   
  
He realized with somewhat more urgency that his lips were moving in response, that his blood was heavy in his loins; but Curufin’s mouth left his, then, and his hands released and when Finrod stepped back, nothing but the quickened breathing between them and Finrod’s collar skewed crooked showed what had passed. Celegorm gave a low, odd laugh.   
  
“We will talk of this again tomorrow, yes?” Curufin said, polite as always, and smiled the polite, insubstantial smile that was utterly unlike his smirk of a moment ago. “Tonight, it is late, and I would rather not discuss such unpleasant subjects.”  
  
Finrod could hear Celebrimbor’s soft tread as the boy fled up the stairs. He nodded, not unsteadily, although he felt thrown off-course.   
  
“Very well,” he said, and it was only after the two brothers had withdrawn - almost arm in arm, Celegorm grinning as if Curufin had done something to be proud of, Curufin as unruffled as ever - that he realized that he had lost this field, that he had not objected to what Curufin had done.   
  
So what his poor wife had accused him of was true. Finrod touched his lips with a hand that trembled, suddenly, now that he was alone, and went to bed and lay restlessly awake until the shameful, low-burning fire within him had abated.   
  
He dreamed that he saw himself, dressed in silk and jewels, and his other-self looked at him with pity.   
  
“He will be the death of you,” his other-self said, but Curufin was there and he laughed, and anger arose in Finrod and he pinned Curufin to the ground and kissed and bit at his throat.   
  
He awoke with a trembling in his limbs and a coppery taste on his tongue, and knew that his fate had been set.


	3. Chapter 3

Later, Finrod will record the events and then burn the pages, neat precise rows of writing on snowy paper that crumble so prettily into ash. It still will not help him make sense of what happened; all it does is affix it in his memory.  
  
What does not happen is: a confrontation of proper sorts, a reprimand to Curufin for his behavior. Days pass, and Finrod simply cannot find the words to bring up the subject again; he cannot even define how he should feel about it. Sad? Angry, offended? (Curious?)  
  
What does happen is; three days pass, and then Curufin is in the room that was once Artanis’, in the depths of the night when Finrod has retreated there. He sits by the dresser, examining one of the necklaces, and perhaps Finrod should have backed out the moment he saw him there, or demanded in tones of righteous anger how he got in.  
  
Finrod stepped in and closed the door behind him, and when he asks, his voice is a whisper dragging past his lips, as he tries not to stammer.  
  
“How did you get in?”  
  
His heart pounded unnaturally hard in his chest, and the grooves of the doorknob were slick with sweat before he made his hand release it. Curufin’s hair glistens slightly in the half-moonlight slanting in the window. (He writes all those little details down, later, prolonging the time until what happened - happened, as long as he could).  
  
“I took the liberty of copying your key,” Curufin said, rising to his feet - a graceful motion, for Curufin for all his strangeness was a graceful man. “It seems that between us the rules of hospitality are… bent, at least. Hm?”  
  
“I apologized.” It comes out sounding like a plea, and Finrod swallows hard and tries again. “Now, if you will please… leave…”  
  
Curufin has turned and picked up a creation of shimmering cloth that was laid over the back of his chair; Finrod had not left it out. Curufin must have selected it, from the closet. He holds the blue dress up, out; the hanger taps against Finrod’s collarbone, the silk settling heavy and cool against his skin.  
  
“The color suits you,” he says, as if it were a perfectly ordinary compliment.  
  
Finrod blinks. Should he try to say they belong to Artanis? No - Curufin’s eyes tell him that he knows already. Lying at this point would only make him look foolish. But… he is at a loss as to how to respond.  
  
“Thank you,” he finds his mouth saying, from sheer force of habit. Curufin smiles.  
  
“I’d like to see how it looks on,” he said, and released it and let Finrod catch it, stepping back. Same nonchalant tone.  
  
And that, (Finrod writes, tip of his tongue flicking out over his bottom lip in remembered nervousness) is how he came to be pulling the dress on, feeling Curufin’s gaze on his skin (because Curufin did not look away, and some terrible fascination, the seeming inevitability of everything that happened, kept Finrod from protesting). The wide sleeves enclosed his arms gracefully, the long skirt falling against his legs and pooling around his feet - it was rather long, without hoop-skirt or bustle to support it.  
  
He looked up, and his throat tightened at the intensity with which Curufin’s eyes were burning into him. His eyes flickered reflexively downwards, away from the gaze, and he watched the way the cloth on Curufin’s sleeve smoothed out and lined again as his cousin raised his arm.  
  
Curufin’s hand settled on the small of Finrod’s back; tentative at first, then fingertips stroking boldly up beneath his loose-falling hair, over the back of his neck and down again between his shoulder blades.  
  
(At this point, Finrod finds himself scratching out a flurry of excuses. He couldn’t have just left the room, at first - Curufin had already guessed his secret. And as for putting on the dress, well, he had hoped that would satisfy his cousin’s curiosity and he would leave after that. It was all very strange, nothing he had been taught to handle.)  
  
(He has no excuse for what happened next however, except that nobody had ever seen him like that before and certainly not complimented it and he had been caught off-guard.)  
  
“Beautiful,” Curufin said, his voice strangely hoarse, and his mouth descended on Finrod’s neck. It was no gentle kiss - rough and sucking, with a bite to it that made Finrod gasp, clutching at Curufin’s shoulder.  
  
But that would not suit, swooning against him like he truly was a girl, he thought fuzzily; he was the lord of this house. And so he pulled away, turning to face Curufin again with his breathing heavy in his mouth, and drew himself up.  
  
Curufin gave a low sigh at the sight, and to Finrod’s shock sank to his knees, looking up at him with glittering eyes. And - no, there was that heaviness in his loins again, color rising to his cheeks, body tense as a violin-string. No.  
  
(He writes that word again several times: no. No. No. It does not change what had happened).  
  
No, his cock could not be hardening at the sight of his male cousin down on his knees. He could not… but still, a low moan escaped his mouth when he parted his lips. Curufin’s eyes were lingering on Finrod’s neck, which was still stinging; he wondered if there was a mark. But at the sound of Finrod’s moan, Curufin’s eyes went to his face, and their gazes met again.  
  
Silence gathers thickly between them for a few seconds, only their ragged breathing breaking it.  
  
Curufin licked his lips, and spoke first.  
  
(Finrod writes that he cannot remember what he said. That the strange events afterwards drove it out of his head. That nobody but a priest should have had to hear that kind of confession. That damn Curufin, that was the exact moment he knew he could not cast him out. Because how could you hear someone’s most intimate secrets and have the heart to turn them away afterwards?)  
  
Finrod let out a painful breath, and closes the distance between them; what else is there to do? The silk falls almost silently against the floor as he sinks to his knees by Curufin’s side.  
  
“There is nothing I can do to help you,” he finally says.  
  
“I know,” Curufin replies tonelessly, eyes on the floor.  
  
After that, Finrod does the only thing that seemed to make sense at the time, which was kiss him.  
  
Curufin’s cheek was warm under his lips, but Curufin quickly turns his head to catch his mouth, and Finrod discovers that his cousin’s mouth and tongue are even more warm, and closes his eyes. Curufin’s hands settle on his body, lightly touching and then gripping roughly on the blue cloth; holding him at neck and waist. Finrod in turn fumbles at Curufin’s hair-tie and thinks, distantly, bed, as if this is the most natural thing in the world.  
  
(It seemed so, at the time, Finrod writes miserably. It has to be the fiftieth time he’s used the phrase.)  
  
And after that it is a jumble of images and feelings that make his cheeks burn to even try to put to paper; a confusion in which only a few images stand clear.  
  
Folding the blue dress neatly and laying it aside, even though his hands are trembling with want, because he will not have it ripped or soiled.  
  
Curufin moving so surely - but then, his wife had caught him with the servants in the past, hadn’t she, it had been mentioned in her letter - as he guided Finrod’s hand to his cock, and the way his eyes had fluttered closed as Finrod gave the first uncertain stroke.  
  
Bruises left on his shoulder as Curufin digs his fingertips in, and hisses in Finrod’s ear what they could do if they had oil, or enough time - but the night is already waning by then, and neither of them want to move from the bed.  
  
~  
  
He writes all of them down calmly, methodically, then crumples them and throws them in the fire.  
  
Curufin watches him from the doorway, dark eyes shadowed by his lids, a faint smile playing about his lips. His dark suit, so similar to the one he wore the day before, is not rumpled in the slightest, his hair neatly tied back; and Finrod had left no mark on him that is visible.  
  
“I am afraid we will have to stay for a while longer,” he says. “Will that be a problem?”  
  
Finrod screws up a sheet of paper, watching the writing contort and bleed through the paper, and with a flick of his wrist consigns it to the fire.  
  
“No,” he says. “Stay as long as you need to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with fanart from Crocordile on Tumblr!   
> http://gloriousmonsters.tumblr.com/post/90195373204/gloriousmonsters-a-belated-happy-birthday-gift


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